Jacob reese



grams giantess gaunt @ffirri JACOB REESE, OF PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.Letters Patent No. 64,253, dated April 30, 1867.

IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON WITEI STEEL SURFACE.

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".170 ALL WHOM IT MAY concerns:

Be it known that I, JACOB REESE,'of Pittsburg, in the county ofAllegheny, and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and usefulImprovement in Process for the Manufacture of Iron with Steel Surface;and I do hereby declare the following to bee. full, clear, and exactdescription thereof.

My improvement is designed to produce on the surface of malleable orwrought iron a hard, steel-like surface, susceptible of high polish,Without interfering with the capacity of the metal for being rolled,swaged, or forged into any desired form or shape. My invention isapplicable in practice to many purposes, such as the manufacture ofsheet iron, similar to the Russia sheet iron, to the making ofarmor-plates for vessels of war, and

of shafting, axles, ploughs, and various .other articles in which ahard, smooth, or highly polished surface is required. I V

1 In order to enable others skilled'in the art to make use of myinvention, I will proceed to explain the manner in which it is to beemployed, and in so doing I will describe its application in the firstinstance to the manufacture of sheet iron.

The great desideratum in making sheet iron is to obtain a. smooth,clean, and highly polished surface which will resist the tendency ofoxidation which iron possesses in a high degree. For this purposevarious methods have been tried with more or less success, such ascleaning the scale or oxide of? the sheets of metal after they arerolled by means of acid and coating it with oil or fatty matter, orother carbonaceous substances, or annealing the sheets in an atmosphereof carbonic oxide, or when surrounded with smoke, the object being bythe use of.carliou to prevent the oxidation of the iron and give it acarburetted surface. It has also been attempted to effect this purposeby a process of steel plating or coating the malleable iron, with a thinpellicle of steel, which, as is well known, is a combination of carbonand iron, being a subcarburet of that metal. This steel plating isaccomplished by forming a pile of several bars of iron with a bar ofsteel at top and another at bottom of the pile, and rolling the pile ata welding heat until it is reduced to a thin sheet. This plan istheoretically a good one, and produces the smoothest and best-lookingsheets that have been heretofore made in imitation of Russia sheet iron,but it is attended with a great practical diiliculty arising from thefact that the welding point I of steel is at a lower degree of heat thanthat of iron, and as the bars of steel must necessarily be placed on theoutside of the pile it is impossible to have both the iron and steel atthe proper heat to secure a perfect weld. My improvement is designed tosecure a more perfectly carburetted surface to any articles of malleableiron formed by rolling, swaging, or forging, than has heretofore beenobtained by the various methods of treating the iron, either during theprocess of rolling or when it is being annealed with carbon,carbonaceous'mixtures, smoke, or carbonic oxide, while I obviate thenecessity of effecting the mechanical union of a surface coating ofsteel by the process of welding. In the manufacture of sheet iron, asordinarily practised, bars of malleable iron are formed of about fourand a half inches in width, one-half an inch thick, and twenty-sixinches in length. These bars are treated and rolled in thesheet-milluntil'they are reduced by repeated passing between the rollsto the desired thickness. By my process I use similar bars of iron, butbefore reducing them in the sheet-mill they are subjected to a processof partial cementa tion in a convertiug-furnace, by which means the ironis carburetted on the surface, and to a certain depth, depending on thelength of time to which it is exposed to the process of cementation.These sheet bars (that is, bars of iron prepared for rolling intosheets) are subjected at a moderate heat in the convertingfurnace to theaction of carbon or a hydrocarbon, which may be supplied either as asolid, such as charcoal, or as aliquid, such as petroleum. As theprocess of cementation commences at the surface of the iron andgradually extends inward until the whole mass is converted into steel,which requires about six days for its accomplishment, I secure theobject which I have in view, that is to say, the conversion into steelof the particles of iron lying at and near the surface. of the bars,while the inner portion of the iron retains its ductility, by removingthe bars from the converting-furnace in about twenty-four hours afterthey were put in. The length of time to which the iron should be exposedto the process of cementation in the converting-furnace will of coursevary according to the size of the bar, plate, or mass of iron undertreatment, and the depth -to which it is designed to carry the eli'ectproduced by the action of the carbon on the iron. In sheet bars thisdepth may be about one-eighth of an inch below the surface. The barsthus treatednre then taken to the sheet-mill and rolled in the usual wayuntil they are reduced to the required gauge. In rolling the sheet thecarburetted surface extends over the entire sheet, having no tendency tosep arate from the more ductile particles, and the result is theproduction of a thin sheet of metal. having a pellicle of steelextending over its entire surface, giving to the sheet a close, finetexture, which takes a high polish, and

resembles the Russia sheet iron so nearly as to make it diflicult todistinguish one from the other. In rolling. these sheets in packs (thatis, passing four or moreshects together through the rolls) there is notendency of the surfaces of the sheets to adhere to each other, but theyseparate freely owingto, their smooth and hard exterior. If, instead ofcarburetting the iron to a slight depth, the process of cementation werecarried on until the Whole mass were converted into steol, it would betoo hard and rigid to be susceptible of being rolled out into thinsheets of fine gauge with any ordinary machinery, and the articleproduced would lack the desired eharacten istics of sheet iron, but bysimply carburetting the iron at and near the surface the barsare easilyrolled, and

the result is a sheet of iron of thcrequircd ductility with a highlypolished surface which will effectually resist the tendency tooxidation.

My improvement is applicable to the manufacture of various articleswhich require to have a SI9UEll and polished surface, such asplough-wings and mould-boards, armor-plates for ships or vessels of war,shafting, axles, Sac. In making steel ploughs the mould-board and otherparts required to be of steel may be made by rolling or swaging frombars or plates of malleable iron, which have been subjected to partialcementation in the manner already described, and they will possess theadvantage of a steel surface with less liability to crack, besides beingmore easily and cheaply manufactured. i

As applied to the manufacture of armor-plates for vessels of war, myimproved process possesses peculiar advantages. The piles of malleableiron, formed in the usual way, are placed in the converting-furnace, and

the process ofcementation is carried on until the iron is carburetted tothe required depth, leaving the interior of the mass unconverted. Theyare then removed from the furnace and rolled to plates of the desiredshape and thickness in-the usual manner. The result is that thesearmor-plates possess the ductility and strength of malleable iron to agreat degree, combined with the hardness of a steel surface susceptibleof a high polish and capable of resisting the force of violentrercussion. Such plates when struck by projectiles will be less liableto bend or tear than soft iron, and less apt to break than steel, thusuniting the advantages of both.

Axles for cars and vehicles, and shaft-ing for machinery may also beadvantageously made from wrought or rolled iron prepared in the manner Ihave described. Steel shafting, although it runs more smoothly and wearsbetter in its bearings than shafting made of wrought iron, is subject togranulation, and is very liable to break, but when made by my process,axles and shafting, having a steel surface combined with an iron body,will wear longer in their bearings than when made of ordinary wroughtiron, while they possess greater strength and less liability to fracturethan if made of steel. \Vagon and carriage tires, and many otherarticles of iron which are exposed to surface wear or require a highlypolished and smooth exterior, and also need to have the strength andtenacity of wrought iron, may be made in the manner I have described.

I do not claim'as my invention the giving of a steel surface to sheetiron or other articles of rolled or wrought iron by welding a plate orplates of steel to the-iron, either before or after it is rolled orshaped, or during the process of rolling or shaping; but-what I do claimas my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Giving a hard and highly polished surface, or a hard surface susceptibleof high polish, to sheet iron and other articles of rolled, forged, orswaged iron, by exposing the bar, bloom, pile, or slab from which sucharticles are to be rolled, forged, or swaged to partial cementation, sothat the iron may be carburetted on the outside to asuflicient depth togive the required steel coating to the article manufactured therefrom,while the interior portion of the mass of iron retains the nature andcharacteristics of malleable or wrought iron, substantially ashereinbefore described.

Also, converting into steel by cementation the exterior of piles, slabs,blooms, or bars of iron designed to be rolled, forged, or swaged, whilethe interior or body of the piles, slabs, blooms, or bars remainsunconverted and retains the ductility and softness of malleable iron,substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore described.

In testimony whereof I, the said JACOB REESE, have hereunto setimy handin presence of JACOB REESE.

lVitnesses:

A. S. NICHOLSON, Gno. H. CHRISTY.

